


People Like Us Survive

by Power-Bottom-Barba (Cap_Against_The_Clap)



Category: Leap of Faith - Menken/Slater/Cercone
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Crack, I'm ashamed but also so proud, Kinda hints at incest if you squint, Vampires, Violence, crack!fic, total crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 08:25:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7927723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cap_Against_The_Clap/pseuds/Power-Bottom-Barba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jonas finds his faith, and uses it to defend himself and Sam from a plague of vampires.</p><p>Yeah, you read that right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	People Like Us Survive

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for the August 2016 Esparza Exchange, for which I was given the prompt "Anything with vampires." I hope you like it, drgaybelgideon! It is probably the weirdest thing I have ever written, and I had SO MUCH FUN.

Two weeks ago, Jonas Nightingale hadn't believed in God. 

He hadn't believed in signs, in miracles, in the strength of prayer. Even if he had wanted to believe, he had known that he lacked the capacity. He had seen behind the curtain, made the magic, played the trick. There was no recapturing what had been lost when he was a child, no putting spilled ink back in the bottle. 

Jonas Nightingale knew that faith had no power – until the first time he had turned back one of the creatures by holding out a cross and crying out to God. 

It wasn't just the cross that had done it, as he had tried that the first night. When Ornella crept into his bed, warm body grown cold, and soft kisses now sharp with fangs, he had groped for the cross necklace at his bedside and brandished it at her as he scrambled away. She had only laughed and batted the golden jewelry out of his hand. It wasn't until he had smashed a chair and wielded the broken leg as a stake that she had fled. 

It had spread rapidly after that. The bus broken down in the middle of nowhere and with no other way out, those of them who hadn't yet been turned had set their minds to survival. Ornella had been the first to fall victim and had changed Amos and Carl. It wasn't long before most of his Angels were either dead or damned. 

On the seventh night, the door to their temporary stronghold had been broken down, and Ida Mae's throat had been ripped out. The townspeople-turned-monsters had fallen upon her, hissing and laughing as they gorged on her blood. He had escaped out a back window with Sam and Isaiah, the only three remaining. Isaiah had called out to Christ, their true believer, and bought them enough time to escape. 

When they finally stopped running, Isaiah had cried for his mother, and Jonas had thrown up while Sam stroked back his hair. 

It was Isaiah's faith that had inspired him. Two days later, the undead – for that is what they were, Jonas could no longer deny it – had captured him. Even as they had pulled at him, clawed at his wrists and ripped his shirt away from his neck, Isaiah had not faltered. 

"Jonas!" he cried out, face stern and proud even as the demons pulled him down. "Submit yourself to God! Resist the devil, and he will flee from you!" Isaiah sang out in psalms, and though the creatures hissed and withdrew, it was too late. The holy boy would not survive his injuries. 

Jonas and Sam were the last ones left, bloodied and tired and afraid. He felt as though they were children again, alone and struggling to survive against all odds. Sam had fallen asleep with her head in his lap as the sun crept up over the horizon. He stroked his hand gently over her tangled blonde curls and prayed – truly prayed, for the first time since he was a child – that he would have the strength to protect her. 

That night when the creatures found them, he had thrust his cross toward them, the broken chain dangling from his fist, and rebuked them in the Lord's name. Where it touched them, the unearthly beauty of their faces twisted, and their skin blackened as though kissed by the sun. 

Sam was becoming adept at sharpening wood into stakes, and Jonas' hands almost never shook when he used them. Faith gave him strength – faith, and the drive to save his sister from these monsters at all costs. 

His faith was not strong enough. 

There were too many of them, and for every one they struck down, Legion would take it's place. After Sam was lost, Jonas kept running, kept fighting. Bleeding, her leg broken, the bloodsuckers tearing her away from him, she had screamed that he had to run. He had called out to God, begged for Sam to be saved, but there were simply too many. They had taken her, and he had followed her last commandment. He ran. 

In the end, she came back to him, and perhaps that was his miracle. 

Her skin was milk and her wild hair was tamed to perfect curls, the dirt and blood that had coated them like a film over the last weeks gone. She glowed in the moonlight as she pressed up close against his chest, cold hands running along his neck and up into his hair. Her smile was seductive and sharp with fangs. 

Jonas' hand flexed and squeezed around around his cross, but he could not make himself lift it. He ached in his loneliness, and it was so sweet to be held. He had missed Sam so much. 

"We've always been together, Jonas, always me and you." Her words were ghosted against his ear, and the necklace that had been his protection and comfort slipped from his hand and fell to the ground. Faith was ephemeral and too cold a comfort when his sister was close and present, if not quite alive. 

He tightened his arms around her, and buried his face into her hair. The scent of her was unchanged, even now, when everything else had.

"We'll always be together, Sam." 

He didn't resist as her teeth sank into his throat, and his hot blood filled her mouth.


End file.
